01/22/2021
Denny’s take on the Bernie meme.
Why the Bernie meme is so viral---
In 1957, my parents bought an abandoned farm in South Reading, Vermont. On one of the trail rides that had the most hills, I would ride out of the driveway, turn right, and head over toward Cavendish,
About two miles up the road, on the left, was a dairy farm, run by an old man with a beard, and his middle aged son, a typical Vermont hill farm of 65 years ago, lots of junk, unpainted house, beat up tractor, even more beat up pick up.
The two guys wore ragged clothes, knee high rubber boots, again, standard for the time and place. I would ride by and say hi, knowing, in that deep down certainty that you have when you are a kid, that these two were typical old yankees, like the stories were written about.
One day, and I don't know for what reason, I stopped to talk with the father, and somehow the city of Burlington got mentioned.
"Burlington," the old guy said---I got a son who lives up there."
"What does he do?" I asked.
"Teaches at the Medical School," he replied.
BAM---Every assumption that I had so totally bought into, gone in that instant. The Cavendish dairy farmer who I KNEW was about a fifth generation hill farmer had been the Treasurer of the Wanamaker chain of department stores in Philadelphia, got sick of it, and moved to Vermont to farm.
And had become "Vermont", in deed and appearance, just like Bernie, minus the Long Island accent.
Vermonters, both the actual ones and many of the transplants, are sort of holdovers from the 19th century. They could care less about impressing people with their clothes, their cars, their hair styles, their fashion sense--.
So when Bernie sits there in his parka and his wooolen mittens, when everyone else is dressed for success, something about that basic don't give a damn attitude hits some part of the American conscience that hasn't totally sold out to the glitz machine.
Anyway, that's how it strikes me---And I am not a Vermonter. I am from New Hampshire.
